Over the years, exteriors of residential homes have been typically sided with materials including asbestos, wood and gypsum boards. Wood siding has come in a number of different forms, including different types of shakes (i.e., a hand-split piece of wood) with an external surface dimension or exposure of 6.5″ to 14″ in height, per shake and an appearance differing in wood grains, textures, and styles. Asbestos siding, now outlawed because of the toxicity associated with the material, was comprised of cement and asbestos fibers, with an exposure of 9″ to 2′ in height. Gypsum boards have been used to simulate wood planking.
Recently, various durable materials have been employed to replace or cover the existing exteriors. Included in such materials have been aluminum, steel, and very recently, fiberglass, polypropylene and vinyl. Fiberglass, for example shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,015,391 to Epstein, has been short-lived in application because of rotting, thereby decreasing its longevity. Coating materials were ineffective in adherence to the fiberglass. Polypropylene suffers problems in expansion and contraction and in weatherability. Consequently, it is a product that must be painted and then sealed, thereby only providing five (5) years of warranty. ABS materials, another type of plastic, have also been recently introduced, and problems associated with cracking in cold conditions have yet to be overcome.
Accordingly, the current material of choice is polyvinyl chloride, or “PVC” with added composites to create texture, and to improve weatherability for longer lasting applications.
Siding, when applied, must secure first to the exterior of the house, and second the pieces must secure to one another. Typically a starter strip or course is first applied. Then, a sheet is attached to the starter strip and nailed to the house. Subsequent sheets must thereafter interlock to one another, in one of two possible ways. First, a “lock-up” assembly can be employed in which the interlocking occurs by way of an upwardly-directed motion. Second, a “stacking” arrangement can be employed by which the interlocking occurs by way of a downwardly-direction motion. It is generally recognized in the art that the “lock-up” assembly is preferred because assembly is quicker, and presents less stress to the attached panel as a subsequent panel is being upwardly locked in place.
The siding business has been replete with the purported inventions of others.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,417,531 to Jones shows a lock-up assembly for siding having beads and legs for attachment. Jones does not show a clipping assembly, and thus suffers from impractical difficulty in detachment after the paneling is applied.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,703,795 to Mattes shows a two piece assembly system wherein a second piece (see, e.g., “retainer part” 84), separate and apart from the first piece, must be applied after the first piece is applied to retain the portions, and provide a lip for the subsequent sheet to be locked in place. Consequently, this discontinuous design is slow in assembly, and because of the two piece application, would generally be effective only where the exterior of the house has been configured with gypsum board or with the addition of a backing board.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,538 to Marcum, Jr. shows a metal-specific application that typically cannot be used for plastics including PVC because the upward surface of the “hooks” 13 are rolled. While metal can be deformed easily in this manner, to do so with plastics would be cost prohibitive. Moreover, as can be observed in Marcum, Jr.'s disclosure, there is no nailing or fastening means integral to the hooks 13, and thus hooks 13 are not engaged to the backing or exterior of the house. Accordingly, where a seem is first confronted by a hook 13 of a panel, there will be no engagement, and thus the entire sheet is likely to visibly detach after a short duration of use. Lastly, the clips are not displaced relative to the cross-section of the sheet, thus minimizing the ability to create an external surface texture of the siding.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,702 to Rajewski addresses the issue of rolling the upward surface, as shown in Marcum, Jr., by rolling a plastic piece along fold line 50. However, plastic manufacturing does not permit such heating and rolling without sacrificing flexibility and durability at the point of the fold. In other words, the sheet is first extruded, and then thermo-formed at the point of the fold and folded upon itself, it is also folded so as to provide the flange. Such two step heating is more expensive, and the result is less flexible and durable. As a result, in operation, the sheet so folded will be more liable to crack along the fold line 50, or worse, at the flange 26, and thus be in need of more frequent replacement. Additionally, flange 26 in Rajewski is co-continguous with the entire sheet, thus requiring the use of more material than is necessary to achieve the same or a better result. Reduction in the amount of material results in lower costs, and hence greater profits.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,665 to Katz shows an extruded panel having a flange 135 for engaging an upwardly locking lip 150 having a bead 154. Katz is important in showing a way of having a positive engagement click resulting from the specific shapes involved. However, the nailing step as shown in FIG. 7 of Katz does not provide a double thickness through which the nail must pass. Rather, it is a single thickness and the flange depends therefrom, leaving a point of natural failure at the dependent connection when the sheets are placed under wind load. Also, like Rajewski, the flange of Katz is continguous with the entire length of the panel, and thus suffers from extra material costs.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,669,238 to Kellis, et al. shows a discontinuous clip assembly. However, like in Mattes, Kellis, et al. provides a clip that is nailed as a separate stage, and can be placed by the installer at any location chosen. First, it must be observed that whenever the installer is given the option to “cut corners” in installation, the installer will. Accordingly, in operation, Kellis, et al. will eventually result in sheets that are not bound at specific distances (e.g., every 4″) and thus the installation will be weaker. Also, the additional clip portion when added will only result in a single thickness that is nailed to the backing. Additionally, in the locations in which clips are not used, there is the natural tendency for sagging and bowing because of the obvious distance between the upper and lower interlocking pieces. Thus, in operation, Kellis, et al. is less than desirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,864,787 to Bukowski shows a double bend in the flange, thus suffering from some of the same problems indicated above. Additionally, Bukowski nails into a singe thickness, which also indicates a point of weakness. It should be appreciated that Bukowski appears to deal with the issue of edges and how sheets can connect without the need for a separate edge to be applied. This extra complication has found limited use in the industry.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,072,562; 5,249,402; 5,347,784 to Crick, et al. show a stack-locking mechanism, and, importantly, shows that the industry is replete with simulating the surface shakes in a manner in which each shake is identical, and the spacing between each such surface shake is identical. In this manner, the industry has heretofore only provided a simulated appearance that is so unnatural as to show that it is, in fact, not real. Apparently, heretofore no one addressed the need to vary the thickness of the lines between shakes so as to create an uneven effect more consistent with the natural material, and also to improve the shading effect.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,792 to Moliere shows a lock up assembly formed from a single mold, in which the nailing portion is a single thickness, the flange 40 provides a narrow opening for insertion of the interlock lip 50, and the distance between shakes, i.e., the thickness of the vertical lines between shakes, is always the same.
It is thus an object of the instant invention to provide a lock-up assembly in which the locking of the interlock lip from each lower portion of a sheet is allowed a greater entry aperture then the locking the aperture for a more positive locking effect, the nailing thickness is double the traditional thickness in that nails attach both the flange portion as well as the back portion to the backing material, and the vertical lines between shakes vary to resemble more of a natural appearance.
It is an additional object of the instant invention to provide nailing substantially co- linear with the topward portion of the interlock between the lip and flange, to thereby minimize wind distortion effects.